The South East English county of East Sussex is a popular destination for vacations and short breaks. Diverse types of vacations can be taken ranging from walking vacations in the South Downs to seaside vacations. East Sussex really does offer a fantastic range of vacation opportunities.
Many people enjoy relaxing at the seaside and the southern part of the county of East Sussex features an extensive stretch of coastline, where you will find towns such as Hove, Eastbourne, Bexhill-on-Sea, Hastings and Brighton.
The most widely known seaside resort is Brighton, the largest seaside settlement in the UK. Once Brighton was little more than a small fishing village however in about 1750 a local physician started to suggest that his patients should bathe in, and drink, seawater for their health, declaring that Brighton’s seawater was the best. In only a few decades, in seventeen eighty, Georgian terraces started to be built and the tourism industry in Brighton was established.
Tourism was further boosted by a visit by the Prince Regent (later King George IV of England) in in the year seventeen eighty three and again when the railway arrived in 1841 (delivering swathes of day-trippers from the surrounding area and as far away as London). Today the city sees roughly eight million tourists a year and sometimes it appears as though you can hardly move for Brighton guest houses and tourists.
Another popular seaside town in East Sussex is Eastbourne. Located at the east end of the South Downs, it is one of the United Kingdom’s most sunny towns. The main industry in Eastbourne is tourism and it has the usual pier alongside many other tourist attractions including four theatres, numerous parks & gardens, museums and a beach (shingle), as well as some lovely features such as the bandstand. Luckily it is easy to find cheap bed and breakfast accommodation, at the least somewhat less expensive than many Brighton bed and breakfasts.
Besides the two seaside resorts discussed above, East Sussex also has the lesser, but extremely pretty, seaside towns of Bexhill-on-Sea, Rye and Hastings, and numerous towns of interest further inland such as the former market towns of Hailsham, Heathfield and Uckfield. A further town of interest in East Sussex well worth visiting is Crowborough in the Ashdown Forest, plus Battle and Lewes (the county town) as well as many more.